SOURCE: "Plagiarism and Authentic Creativity in West Africa," in Research in African Literatures, Vol. 6, No. 1, Spring, 1975, pp. 32-9.

A Nigerian educator and critic, Nwoga edited and compiled Critical Perspectives on Christopher Okigbo (1984). In the following excerpt, he addresses the issue of plagiarism in Okigbo's poetry, comparing Okigbo's works with those of other poets.

Perhaps I should start in the matter of "plagiarism" with our authentic poet, Christopher Okigbo. Sunday Anozie, in his book, Christopher Okigbo: Creative Rhetoric, writing of Okigbo's earliest poems, the "Four Canzones," talks of the four-movement division in each of the Canzones, which continues in the 4th Canzone, "each movement introducing a new variation upon the central theme, and all rounding off in that last ritual exorcism inspired by Miguel Hernandez," the Spanish author of "El amor ascendia entre nosotros …" "Inspired," writes Anozie, but look at the similarities:

                                 Okigbo
 
       "Lament of the Lavender Mist"
 
       The...